In this article, you’ll discover how to use LinkedIn’s Professional Portfolio to make your LinkedIn profile stand out.

What is LinkedIn’s Professional Portfolio?

LinkedIn launched Professional Portfolio to showcase your unique professional story using rich visual content.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a photographer, a real estate agent, an interior designer or a marketer. By adding an interactive, rich media experience to your profile, you can leverage the power of imagery.

Content can be added to your LinkedIn profile in the form of photos/images, videos, presentations and audio recordings.

You can also link a range of documents and content types with Professional Portfolio. These are either hosted by LinkedIn or linked through approved providers. For example, approved providers for presentations are Prezi, Scribd and SlideShare. You can view a complete list of approved providers here.

How to Get Started on Professional Portfolio

First, select edit mode on your LinkedIn profile:

Editing your Professional Portfolio is simple and has lots of room for creativity.

Next, follow the prompts in your chosen Summary, Experience or Education section. The first time you do this, LinkedIn will encourage you to add visual content.

LinkedIn encourages users to get discovered for their work by adding rich media.

Now, you can easily click on the following symbol (while in edit mode) to add visual content to your LinkedIn profile:

Choose to Add Link or Upload File via the drop-down menu.

To add a link, paste the complete URL into the field, and LinkedIn will grab the content for you, pull in an image, and prefill the fields for title and description.

If you want to go back and edit any of the media, simply look for the pencil icon at the lower right corner on any of your content, click on it and edit the fields.

It’s as easy as that. In just a few steps, your profile springs to life!

LinkedIn created a SlideShare presentation showing how easy it is to add visual content to your profile, regardless of your profession. You can watch it here.

Action on your professional gallery is automatically showcased on the LinkedIn news feed.

So let’s take a look at 6 real-life examples of small business owners and marketers creatively using LinkedIn Professional Profile.

#1: Showcase Video on Your Profile

There’s no doubt that video is an effective way to feature your business. Professional Portfolio lets you quickly and easily embed videos from a wide range of approved video providers.

Melonie Dodaro embedded not one but two videos from YouTube in her Summary section to showcase her social media services and provide an example of her speaking skills.

Note how Melonie includes a call to action in both titles.

Hot Tip: Make your title “actionable” so the viewer clicks through to your Professional Portfolio. Once inside, they’re instructed to click to play the video as follows:

Professional Portfolio media are displayed in a scrolling menu at the bottom.

Professional Portfolio is about user experience. The user is encouraged to stay and explore other types of media from within the Portfolio, without having to go back into the profile. Melonie’s scrolling menu of media includes other video, images and articles featured on her LinkedIn profile.

With so many people not using video in their portfolios, do you think video might help you stand out on LinkedIn?

#2: Embed SlideShare Presentations

SlideShare easily integrates with Professional Portfolio to provide another media-rich way to showcase your content.

When looking for an example of SlideShare presentations being used to showcase skills and experience on LinkedIn, I needed to go no further than Jesse Desjardins.

Jesse uses SlideShare to highlight the incredible social media results he has achieved with his team at Tourism Australia.

Jesse features a very powerful presentation called the World’s Biggest Social Media Team.

By clicking on the image, you are taken to his Professional Portfolio, where you can view the complete SlideShare presentation, right within Jesse’s profile.

Just one media-rich presentation is enough to showcase the social media innovations at Tourism Australia.

Jesse and Tourism Australia are taking user-generated content to new levels. The whole story plays out in his Professional Portfolio.

If you have content on SlideShare, don’t miss the opportunity to feature it on your Professional Portfolio to showcase your authority.

#3: Highlight Your Achievements and Awards With a Visual Twist

Have you won an award? Published a bestseller? Been featured in a major blog or online magazine? Shout it from the rooftop with visuals.

Fiona Lucas is the author of the recently published book, Futureproof Your Kids. With Professional Portfolio, she can visually showcase her book as well as her recognition as one of the finalists in the Most Clickable Women Awards with the following images highlighted at the foot of her LinkedIn Summary section:

Badges, awards and book covers stand out visually on LinkedIn using Professional Portfolio.

What award, recognition, project or achievement can you show on your profile?

#4: Add Photos and Images for a Media-Rich Experience

Photographer Belinda Fettke uses Professional Portfolio to showcase her work by featuring an image gallery of her award-winning photographs at the end of her LinkedIn Summary:

Where is your eye drawn? To images…award-winning images, of course!

On clicking through, you’re taken to Belinda’s Professional Portfolio, which features photography from her multimedia account at Behance, a site for showcasing the work of creative professionals across a range of industries.

Linking to Behance is no different than linking to a normal article—just enter the URL of the Behance project you want to add while in edit mode.

Professional Portfolio offers a scrolling option so you can easily look through related images or photographs.

LinkedIn even offers the ability to like or comment on individual images or videos:

Getting social with images on LinkedIn.

#5: Provide Social Proof With Screenshots

As outlined in #1, video is one way to showcase your speaking experience on LinkedIn. But a simple screenshot can add social proof by sharing the perspective of audience reaction or testimonials from other social platforms.

For example, to create a summary of your speaking experience on LinkedIn, start with simple imagesand screenshots from any recent and upcoming events to provide a snapshot of your experience. You can translate this idea to showcase any project, work history or “point of difference” on your profile.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to your creativity on Professional Portfolio.

#6: Link to Articles With Visuals

The simplest and quickest way to add visuals to your LinkedIn Profile is by linking articles with public URLs. Any live, public link containing an image, photo or infographic will upload instantly.

Cindy King has used this to showcase her articles in Social Media Examiner by adding a direct link to them on her LinkedIn profile.

By clicking on this link, you are taken (via Professional Portfolio) to a stream of articles written by Cindy King on Social Media Examiner .

Link Tip: When you add a link to your Professional Portfolio, the image, title and description will autopopulate, which means that the image drawn from a multi-image article may not be the one you want.

One way to retain control over images is to upload an image and then enter the information manually. However, you don’t get the benefit of the link being clickable or hyperlinked. It all depends on your priority between clickable links vs. having some control over the image that’s populated.

For example, on my own LinkedIn profile, a suitable image wouldn’t autopopulate from the link for an article on Forbes, so I used a screenshot instead. The image on the right autopopulated well and contains a clickable Read Original link to allow users to visit the original article.

Adding a call to action such as Click to Read can encourage the viewer to discover more of your profile.

Include calls to action on your image title and/or description (i.e., Click to view, Watch video).

If possible, include a live link to your articles. If the link doesn’t generate or the image isn’t suitable, upload a screenshot/photo and manually enter the information. You can’t currently control the image that is autopopulated.

You can reorder your media among sections of your profile. Click on Move this media in edit mode to access a drop-down menu of locations to move it to within your profile.

Individual images can be rearranged by dragging and dropping them within a section of your profile.

All titles and descriptions can be edited or updated.

Only public URL links can be included at present.

Start getting social with visual content by liking or commenting on images in other profiles.

Mix up your visual media. Add a range of images, photos, screenshots, video and presentations. Be creative! Remember that every time you change your visual content in Professional Portfolio, it shows on the news feed, giving you more exposure to other LinkedIn users.

Still need some inspiration?

LinkedIn produced this SlideShare presentation to feature users who’ve leveraged the power of Professional Portfolio—an executive chef, a TV reporter, a motorcycle adventurer, a makeup artist and a writer.

With Professional Portfolio, the ability to tell your professional story is really only limited by your imagination. I hope that these 6 tips will help you maximize your exposure on LinkedIn and better showcase your unique professional story.

What do you think? Have you used these features to showcase your skills and experience? If not, do you think you’ll consider giving your LinkedIn profile a visual overhaul with Professional Portfolio? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Donna Moritz is the founder of Socially Sorted. She helps small businesses, bloggers and entrepreneurs use visual social media strategies to get more reach, referrals and results in their business. Other posts byDonna Moritz »

http://www.SelfEmployedKing.com/ Mike Kawula

Awesome tips and I definitely have to take advantage of number 4 more.

I had recently interviewed 50 entrepreneurs who actively use Linkedin for tips and no-1 brought that up but I do see that making the experience much better. I did take advantage of #3 by highlighting recent publications like guest post or podcast interviews and saw a nice spike in views since doing that.

Have an amazing week ~ Mike

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks Mike – great to hear you are seeing positive results by adding visuals. I agree, there are definitely a lot of strategies that entrepreneurs can use to leverage their LinkedIn Profiles, especially now that they can so easily add visual content. #3 is definitely one that could be used a lot more by marketers. I hope you have an amazing week too!

You are welcome my friend – have fun playing with Professional Portfolio – I can’t wait to see what you do with it!

http://www.bloggingfromparadise.com/ Ryan Biddulph

Hi Donna,

What a post and kick in the behind! Lol….

My LI profile is in serious need of repair. I have neglected it, being so busy on twitter and Facebook. Right now I will dive in, follow each step and spruce things up….after tweeting this post to my 26,000 followers

Using multi-media is huge. I can post my travel pictures to give people a taste of how I am living the internet lifestyle. Powerful entertainment value here.

Thanks for sharing!

Ryan

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Ha ha glad I could help Ryan! Don’t worry, you will be amazed at how quickly you can add some visual content to your profile – and there are so many people not leveraging this yet, that even adding some of the tips above, will help you to stand out on LinkedIn – especially if you can mix travel with business! Thanks for tweeting it out – much appreciated!

http://movilesbaratosbcn.blogspot.com.es/ Moviles Baratos

waw nice article post i liked and i get many ideas. thanks for sharing

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

No problems – glad you found it useful!

http://www.christiankonline.com Christian Karasiewicz

Thanks for sharing @sociallysorted:disqus. I recommend a lot of these to business associates I work with. #6 is one that gets overlooked by most users. It works great with a Slideshare account.

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Absolutely Christian – glad to hear you are recommending it to your colleagues – and yes, Slideshare and LInkedIn are a match made in heaven! Thanks for your feedback!

For sure, and I agree, now that that LinkedIn and Slideshare are “married” it will be interested to see the potential! I love Slideshare and great to see them branching out into other forms of visual communication including infographics. I met @jessedee at a conference we were both speaking at and he is a Slideshare genius… http://www.slideshare.net/jessedee – “You Suck at Powerpoint” is just brilliant. We are very lucky to have the guy in charge of social media for Australia. We are in good hands!

Dotty Scott

I have been using the images addition for some time now. I just tried a Youtube link and it will not take it – even though it says YouTube is supported. Bummer…

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Oh definitely that’s a bummer Dotty! Usually when you add the link, it automatically pulls up a screen grab and auto-populates a description. However, as I said above, sometimes (for whatever reason) the image or link does not pull in correctly, so maybe give it another shot on another day, or try a different link to see if that works. Sorry to hear you are having trouble – I have had a couple of articles that just won’t pull in and as with everything in life and on the internet, sometimes things don’t run perfectly. Thanks for sharing! Hope you get it to work!

http://geekfree.net/ Aaron

Awesome Donna, thanks for this. I am using SlideShare but haven’t tried portfolio images/content. Until now Thanks!

Aaron

Career Sidekick

Very very good article. Impressive website too! you guys definitely know your facts.

I love that LinkedIn has incorporated visual aspects. Careers aren’t so black and white and through these tips you’ve offered, candidates can set themselves apart. People remember images better than words and recruiters (or any other kind of connection) will likely remember a project that caught their eye visually over even a vivid description.

Raubi Marie Perilli

Really great tips Donna!. Too many people don’t realize that LinkedIn is a great tool for marketing themselves. I’m going to share this with all of the writers that I work with.

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks Aaron! It’s great that people who have fabulous SlideShare presentations are now seeing that they an easily intergrate them with LinkedIn – I am a big fan of cross promoting and repurposing content, especially when it is essentially one click! Have fun with it – I am sure you will find lots of creative ways to showcase your skills!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks so much! I hope you get to have some fun optimizing your LinkedIn Profile!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Hey Sarah – thanks so much for your comment – I totally agree. A visual CV/LinkedIn profile can make the world of difference and people are getting smart about visuals nowadays…creating Slideshare presentations, infographics and animated videos about their skills and experience. Why not take your profile from Meh to Boom, hey! I love your line “Recruiters are likely to remember a project that caught their eye visually over even a vivid description” – true. Thanks (PS I LOVE Sprout Social too!).

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thank you so much @raubimarieperilli:disqus! That’s awesome…. and I totally agree…even in writing this I tried to find a lot of examples of people leveraging Professional Profile and I was surprised at how much “potential” was left to fill in a lot of profiles. Spread the word and get those writers having a little creative fun with it! Be sure to let me know if you see some good examples! Have a great day!

For sure. I didn’t realize all of these things existed so I’m looking forward to setting up my profile too!

Melonie Dodaro

Wonderful job on outlining all the different types of visuals you can include with LinkedIn’s rich multi media feature Donna. And I so appreciate you using me as an example in your article

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

You are welcome Melonie, and surprisingly enough, not a lot of people post video on their Profiles, so even when I went searching for examples, it was not common… but I knew that you would have one for me to use – you are my go-to-person for all things LinkedIn!

Melonie Dodaro

Awe, thank you

http://www.EntrepreneurOnFire.com/ John Lee Dumas

Great ways to showcase your brand! Having those “Call to Action” titles in videos is a great strategy to get your viewers attention and increase your click through rate. Thank you Donna!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks John! @meloniedodaro:disqus is a smart cookie when it comes to “calls to action” on LinkedIn that’s for sure. And yes, using visuals is such a fun (and effective) way to showcase your brand. Have some fun with it – I am sure you will come up with some cool ideas!

http://www.it-sales-leads.com/ Barbara Mckinney

We all know that LinkedIn is the most powerful social media site for business.It’s very important to know the things that we have to do to make it look more professional.Thanks for sharing this Donna!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

You are very welcome Barbara! Have fun playing with Professional Portfolio – it truly is very user friendly and add some wow factor to your Profile with very little effort!

Andrew Maxwell

Thank you for the great tips. I can now take my profile up a notch!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

No problem Andrew – great to hear you will be taking action – it’s so easy to use, you will be glad you did!

http://www.callbox.com.sg/ Jayden Chu

Truly helpful tips. Linkedin is a great place for networking and lead generation. It is important that we optimize out profile.

Raquel M Ramirez

OMG Donna you just rocked my world. I am having so much fun on my LinkedIn page because of your article. I can’t wait to share your genius tips and ideas. Thank you thank you thank you! Now watch me share this.

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

You are very welcome Jayden! I am glad you found it useful – thanks for letting me know!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Raquel! That’s so awesome. Thanks so much for letting me know. Yes, I would go so far as to say it is fun – once you get started, there are so many ways you can run with it. Have fun and be sure to let me know what you do with Professional Portfolio (or say hi to me on LinkedIn!).

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Great! Be sure to say hi on LinkedIn and let me know when you use some of the ideas!

http://www.celestemitchell.com.au/ Celeste Mitchell

This is such an awesome article, thank you Donna! Love the tips – especially about including a call to action in the caption. I’ve added a few links to my profile but I’ll be heading back over there to jazz it up even more! Well done

Guest

Tremendous information @sociallysorted:disqus. Will try to use this in my profile too.

http://nitishdhiman.com/ Nitish Dhiman

Tremendous information. Will try to use this in my profile too.

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks so much Celeste – with your “word savvy” + images thrown in the mix, I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Give me a heads up after you give it the once-over! Appreciate your feedback as always! :o)

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks so much – glad you are finding it useful – and great to see you taking action with it!

AmandahBlackwell

Fantastic tips!

Thanks for the reminder to highlight your achievements and awards with a visual twist. I didn’t think to upload a couple of icons to show where I’ve been featured online, e.g., publications and blogs.

http://www.douglehman.com/ Doug Lehman

Donna Great Post. I believe in leveraging visual presentations as social proof tools. Great points and strategy tips in this post. I will share it with my network. Donna you put the social in your visual presentation. Thanks Doug

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

That’s great @AmandahBlackwell:disqus – yes, definitely, get them up there!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Great to hear Doug – you are so right, visuals are the perfect way to show social proof! Thanks so much for your feedback and thanks for sharing!

http://www.linkworxseo.com/ Link Worx Seo

A lot of great tips. I use some of these methods already, but have not made the most of them all just yet.

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Great to hear you are using some already – I hope you get some good results out of adding some of the other tips! Thanks for sharing!

LAUS DEO

Do you have to be a premium subscriber .?DONNA

http://www.ecicommunications.com/ Caren Kagan Evans

Thank you so much for doing this! It’s not being promoted well by LinkedIn at all and really should be. Just love you guys!!!

http://heyo.com/ Alex Shamy

Impressive list of enhancements you’ve found here, Donna! You’ve opened my eyes to a world of possibilities building my online resume with LinkedIn. Thank You!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

That’s what I like to hear Alex! That’s great – thanks for the feedback!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Hi Laus – no you don’t – anyone can access it!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

You are welcome Caren – and yes, they should definitely promote it more – there are a lot of slideshare presentations on it and some blog posts, and I think they emailed out about it, but they could do more I think, because people are still surprised to hear it is there for them to use! Thanks!

http://jameshalloran.net/ James R. Halloran

Hey, thanks! I remember seeing this a little while ago on LinkedIn, but I never read a good tutorial about it until now.

They say the future is visual, and companies like Twitter, Google, Bing, and Facebook, are practicing this more and more. You can see this through Twitter’s new pictured tweet templates, Google’s use of banner ads, etc. So, why not follow suit and make your LinkedIn profile one to remember? Thanks for sharing!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

PS say hi on LinkedIn and let me know what you do with it Alex – I am keen to see some great examples!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Absolutely James – every platform is pretty much visual now, including Twitter with images being shown by default. There has been a massive shift to visual social media and with such an overwhelm of content thrown at us daily, we need to find ways to connect with consumers instantly and emotionally, or they move on to the next piece of content. No other medium does that as much as images – not even video, audio or text. Thanks for your feedback – great to see you are on to it – have fun using Professional Portfolio!

Tony Dix

Great information and putting into action this afternoon.

Belinda Fettke

Donna, What a brilliant article

I know i have so much still to learn!

Thank you for using me as an example in your point about ‘Adding Photos and Images for a Media-Rich Experience (#4)’

I am very excited about making the most of the Social Media platforms I use and so glad we have connected through LinkedIn and you have introduced me to Social Media Examiner.

Thank you for sharing Belinda

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Brilliant Tony! I love it when people take action – that was my hope – be sure to say hi on LinkedIn and let me know what you do with it!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

You will LOVE Social Media Examiner Belinda – and thanks for the great example – it is nice to see someone using Professional Portfolio well – it definitely suits photographers and those working in the creative space and with visual content, for sure! Have a great week!

Dimas Fiancheto

Beyond my imagination, perhaps i can make it into my linked in profile, thanks for sharing the idea!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

ha ha no problems – start small, you don’t need to do all of it, even just one or two links is a good place to start!

http://heyo.com/ Alex Shamy

Sent a request, Donna! Thanks again for the pointers.

Jen Picard

Love this article! I had never thought to add links to my blog posts before, but now I’m going back and doing that for all my past positions. Thanks for the tip!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

That’s fabulous Jen – glad you got some practical ideas out of it – have fun playing with it!

ria

great article…..

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks – glad you liked it Ria!

Ben Porter

I just wanted to give a quick heads up that there have been some old issues resurfacing the last few weeks with Behance portfolios when placed on LinkedIn containing scrolling & preview problems. Unfortunately, LinkedIn Members have been asking LinkedIn via their Help Center and have gotten zilch in response. So members beware when trying to use this feature until LinkedIn decides to actually call attention to it.

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

Thanks Ben – that’s really useful to know. I will keep an eye on it and if it is still an issue we will look at putting an “update” on this post. Really appreciate you stopping by to let me know.

Mike Willard

This just goes to prove that Linkedin is a social media powerhouse. Its essential to market your skills and Executive Brand properly. You can find additional info here:http://premiumlinked.wordpress.com/ its great for helping get the most out of your profile !

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

It sure is a social media powerhouse Mike – totally agree with you on that one! And I love that it is now very visual too!

Angelique Duffield

Very thorough article about how to use LinkedIn’s multimedia profile. It gave me a few new ideas on what to add.

Thanks Donna!

http://www.sociallysorted.com.au/ Donna Moritz

No problems Angelique – glad you liked it!

http://www.pvariel.com Philip Verghese Ariel

Hi Donna, What a lovely and wonderful presentation. Indeed a great tutorial with colorful pics and illustration. I am bookmarking it for my further reference and study, Thank you so much for sharing this. May you have a blessed weekend

Silvia

Hi Donna, if you are an employee how can you use the professional portfolio?

Mathias Nielsen

I have problems with linking to behance… When pasting my behance link, linkedIn only shows one snapshot and a link the behance, instead of the full scrolling experience

Paul S

what is the optimal image size for linkedin when sharing screenshots, featured images, etc? thanks-

Brian

I must be missing something. How do you add the hyperlink to the image that you upload?

http://www.drinkingfromhumanskulls.com/ Doni Cordoni

terrific stuff! Now I definitely have a way to make my LinkedIn profile look a little bit less sad

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